What are the basic building blocks of a
successful social movement?
- A discontented group of politicized persons who share the perception that they have common grievances they want society to address;
- A powerful and lucid ideological vision linked to strategies and tactics that have some reasonable chance of success;
- The recruitment of people into the movement through pre-existing social, political, and cultural networks;
- A core group of trusted strategic leaders and local activists who effectively mobilize, organize, educate, and communicate with the politicized mass base;
- The efficient mobilization of resources that are available, or can be developed, to assist the movement to meet its goals;
- An institutional infrastructure integrating political coordination, research and policy think tanks, training centers, conferences, and alternative media.
- Opportunities in the larger political and social scene that can be exploited by movement leaders and activists;
- The skillful framing of ideas and slogans for multiple audiences such as leaders, members, potential recruits, policymakers, and the general public.
- An attractive movement culture that creates a sense of community through mass rituals, celebrations, music, drama, poetry, art, and narrative stories about past victories, current struggles, and future successes.
- The ability of recruits to craft a coherent and functional identity as a movement participant.
(This list is based on the work of Goffman, Zald, McCarthy, Meyer, Gamson, Snow, McAdam, Benford, Klandermans, Johnston, Ewick, Silbey, Polletta, and many other scholars)
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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to freedom and yet deprecate agitation…want crops without plowing. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its mighty waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
—Frederick Douglass
To build a movement for progressive social change, we need to reach across boundaries and build coalitions based on mutual respect and accountability. Ideally, we will engage in cross-sector work. Under the banner of a broad global human rights movement, these are some of the various sectors we need to support in a collective and collaborative manner:
Issues & Sectors
Global Human Rights Movement |
Civil Rights | Peace, Foreign Policy, & Defense |
Civil Liberties |
Race, Ethnicity, & Nationality | Economic Fairness, Class, & Work | Gender & Sexuality |
Environmental Sustainability | Basic Human Needs (Food, Housing, Health Care) |
Public Education |
Students & Youth | Communities of Faith & Spirituality | Labor Unions |
Cross-Sector Work |
Coalition-Building is Crucial!
Bernice Johnson Reagon has discussed the practical problems of coalition work in terms of risk and discomfort. She built a metaphor around her problems breathing due to being at a high altitude for the first time at a 1981 meeting of women in Yosemite National Forest:
“You got one group of people who are in strain—and the group of people who are feeling fine are trying to figure out why you are staggering around, and that’s what this workshop [on coalition politics] is about this morning.”
“I wish there had been another way to graphically make me feel it because I belong to the group of people who are having a very difficult time being here. I feel as if I’m gonna keel over any minute and die. That is often what it feels like if you’re really doing coalition work. Most of the time you feel threatened to the core and if you don’t, you’re not really doing no coalescing.”
–Bernice Johnson Reagon
Using the Human Rights Framework: http://www.buildinghumanrights.us/
Methods & Infrastructure of
Collaborative Social Movements
International Social Movement Organizing |
National Organizing | ||
Community Based Organizing | Individual Political Acts | State & Regional Organizing |
Direct Service | Strategy Development |
Issue Advocacy |
Movement Philanthropy & Donors | Intellectuals and Scholars | Visual and Performing Arts |
Legal Advocacy & Defense | Think Tanks & Watch Groups |
Conferences & Retreats |
Training and Technical Assistance | Applied Research and Analysis | Leadership Development |
Networking & Coalition Building |
Collaborative Electoral & Legislative Work | Media and Publishing |
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“…the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age.”
–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We need to reach out across the divides within our movement, but also reach out to a broader audience using a variety of methods and media.
Outreach to External Groups
General Public |
Membership Groups |
Electoral & Legislative | Corporate Media |
Alternative Media & Corporate Media | Speakers Invited to Address Meetings | National & State Political Party Builders | Obtaining News Coverage |
Leaflets & Flyers | Information Placed in Newsletters | Congressional Membership Organizations | Op-Eds |
Rallies & Events | Tabling at Meetings & Conferences | Political Coalitions & Networks | Letters to the Editor |
Based in part on Mapping the Progressive Movement by Jean Hardisty and Ana Perea.
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“While many progressive people agree that we must work against racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc., I’m not sure that we always understand how intricately these oppressions are linked and how deeply they are connected to our very survival. For instance, do white lesbians and gay men truly understand that fighting against racism is key to our freedom? As we pursue liberation, we will have to build politics of connection from those glimpses we get of our shared destiny with other oppressed people.”
“Sometimes I feel our work is like celestial navigation. Before directional instruments were invented, sailors navigated the seas by fixing their compass on the North Star; however, if they fixed on the wrong star, then everything thereafter was off course. We are working against years of a society fixing on the wrong star. This nation has built all its institutions and policies from the starting point of a fundamental lie: that certain groups of people are inferior to others and hence should be subordinated to them. Every direction taken from this fundamental lie puts us off course, and group after group gets lost. If one begins with the lie that people of color are inferior to white people, then it makes equal sense that women are inferior to men. And so it goes. It is our work to fix upon the truth: that all people are of equal worth and deserve justice.”
“We must do this work as though our lives depend on it. Because they do–all of them, no matter what sex or race or sexual identity or class. There must be justice for all of us or there will be peace for none.”
–Suzanne Pharr
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Chip Berlet: Social Movements Need an Infrastructure to Succeed
Jean Hardisty: My On-Again, Off-Again Romance With Liberalism
How the Right Took Power and the Failure of Liberal Infrastructures
Progressive Movement Building
Featured Allies & More Resources
For more resources:
http://www.buildinghumanrights.us/
http://www.researchforprogress.us/ – http://www.organizedwealth.com